Amaryllis watched as the border between her hometown and the town next to her's was torn down. She clasped her hands together, giddy with excitement. Her hometown cheered as the wall crashed to the ground.

Ulric had begun the process of coexisting with the humans. After the incident with the little boy Sam, Ulric had listened to her. It wasn't without arguing and compromising, but he had listened to her. Humans would finally be free.

Ulric still had to institute a form of blood donations because, without that, the vampires wouldn't be able to survive. If there wasn't some type of donation set up, vampires would find blood their own ways by taking and killing humans, so it would be safer for the humans that way as well.

Amaryllis and Ulric were back in her hometown to watch the border fall, as well as for them to make a televised speech to the kingdom, the embassies across the world, and the humans. The speech entailed the new rules, regulations, and procedures that everyone needed to follow to ensure this process worked in full, and to ensure it would continue working for years to come.

After they had given their televised speech, the couple walked off the stage. The humans and the vampires present cheered and clapped, and Amaryllis couldn't help her smile. She was thrilled that most people seemed to support the decision to coexist. Obviously, some of the vampires were upset, but when Ulric explained that they wouldn't lose their blood sources, they didn't seem opposed anymore.

There still were people in complete opposition, the radical vampires, just as there were humans who were in complete opposition, radical humans. Such vampires want humans under their complete control and the humans want to be liberated completely and don't want to participate in the blood donations. Ulric knew he would have to deal with either group if they were to make a violent outburst of some sort, but at the moment they only voiced their opinions and did not act on anything.

"What are you smiling about, sweet girl?" Ulric asked. He placed his hand on her waist and led them toward her parent's house.

"I'm happy that people seem so responsive to this," she said. She was a little worried that her first power move as Queen was to completely dismantle the hierarchy between humans and vampires, but the vast majority of vampires were in full support, especially since they wouldn't be cut off from their blood sources.

"I'm pleased with how everyone is reacting, too. I know there will be opposition on both sides, but we will deal with that if the time comes."

"I think we did good," she said.

"Me too, sweet girl," he said and placed a kiss on top of her head.

Amaryllis cut the silky red ribbon that blocked off the sidewalk to the newly built daycare. There was a group of people around, excited that she'd completed her first project as Queen and that this project was so successful.

Not only did she hope that this daycare would provide a modern and fun place for children to be creative, but she also hoped it became a symbol for the unity between humans and vampires. The daycare would be a center for both species, human and vampire children, as well as human and vampire caretakers.

"Thank you so much, my Queen," Binta said. "I'd been dreaming of this moment for quite some time."

Amaryllis crinkled her nose at the name. She didn't like the formality of it. "Just call me Amaryllis, Binta. And thank you, this wouldn't have been possible without your ideas," she said.

The daycare was open for business that day and they'd already had several children -both vampire and human- booked for the day.

"I'm proud of you, sweet girl," Ulric said beside her.

"Thank you," she responded, happy that he was proud of her work.

When they returned home, Amaryllis stretched her limbs and yawned. She'd been very tired recently with all the work her and Ulric had been doing. They'd had to facilitate the reinstatement of human society and culture, they had to help develop a type of government system, they had to come up with a currency system, they had to help determine new territory boundaries, etc.

It was a lot of work, especially because Amaryllis refused to just let her, Ulric, and Thierry decide the fate of the humans. She wanted human input as well, which led to conflicts at times. However, it was worth it. They'd been enslaved for so long, they deserved to have input on their new lives.

Ulric pulled most of his guards from the towns, ordering them to return home. The humans now had their own types of law enforcement and safety. He'd kept a few of his guards posted in areas to ensure that the peace remained between the two species, mainly to protect humans from possible angered vampires.

The only influence of the vampire kingdom that remained in the human towns, other than a few guards, were the blood blanks. Human blood was vital for the survival of humans. It would be more dangerous for the blood banks to be done away with because then the vampires would have to find blood for themselves. That would result in the death of humans, so it was safer for the blood banks to remain in place.

"Hey, do I get money?" Amaryllis asked when Ulric returned to the kitchen after his shower. They'd recently finalized the human currency system and distributed money to the slaves in the kingdom that had no jobs.

"You'll never have to pay for anything yourself, love. Besides, you have vampire currency."

"I just want my own money, Ulric," she groaned.

"Why?"

"Because if I'm at my parent's home or in a human shop or whatnot, I want to be able to buy things with human currency. Besides, maybe I want to buy you something without you knowing."

"I will get you money," he agreed, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

"Thank you." Amaryllis stepped out onto the porch, staring at the horses in the field in front of them. A few weeks ago, shortly after the coronation, they moved from the castle to the farmhouse. That was the point of this house after all. They still had their apartment in their castle, and they would stay there occasionally, but their main residence was now the farmhouse.

She looked to the right when she heard a rumbling noise coming from down the driveway. Ulric stepped out on to the porch with her but didn't seem phased by the noise. She saw the front of a black car making its way up the driveway.

"Who's here?" She asked. Ulric glanced down at her with a grin but didn't respond.

When the car stopped, a man got out and opened the back door for someone else. She saw feet moving underneath the car and then a girl emerged from behind. "Cameron!" Amaryllis squealed and ran off the porch to greet her friend. She hadn't seen her in forever it felt.

Cameron was just as excited and ran toward her friend with her arms outstretched. "I've missed you so much, Amaryllis!" Cameron exclaimed and wrapped her arms around her.

"I missed you, too!"

They hugged for a moment before breaking away. "What are you doing back here?" Amaryllis asked.

"Well, I really didn't want to work at the blood bank, I only wanted to be there to see my family. So now that we can come and go freely, I decided to come back. Also, your mate asked if I would come back and he offered me a job," she said.

"So you're back for good?"

"Yup!" Cameron answered.

"This is amazing! Ulric never told me any of this," she said and turned to look at her mate who was watching them from the porch.

"He said he wanted to surprise you because he knew you'd been missing me. I couldn't reject the job either. He asked me to work in the library, keeping stock of books and things and new shipments. It pays well, too."

"I'm so happy you're back!"

Amaryllis knew that a few of the girls she came to the castle with decided to return back to their families. Two of them decided to stay in the castle, but the others wanted to go back home. Same with most of the human slaves/servants. Some of them returned home to their families if they were younger, but if they were older, most of them stayed here.

If a human servant belonged to a vampire in the kingdom, the owner and the human decided together if they wanted to continue living in the owner's house, with the owner supporting them financially and providing them with all of their needs. Or, they could decide that the human still works for them, but the owner pays them a salary and the human can move out and provide for themselves.

The humans outside of the kingdom would continue working the jobs that they had now or go find new jobs/go back to the ones they once had when things start going back to the way they were before the vampires took over.

Teachers were going back to schools to teach a truly human education, rather than a vampire centered, dictated curriculum. Humans were rebuilding homes and moving back to their families that they were separated from. People were going back to work, coming out of their houses, and socializing. Humans were still wary, but the fear that was once there was dissipating.

Human life was starting to return back to normal. Obviously, it would take some time to return back to as close to normal as possible, and they would never fully achieve normalcy because the normalcy humans knew included the negligence of coexistence. However, they were getting there gradually.

"So tell me about your time away. Did you meet anyone?" Amaryllis waggled her eyebrows at Cameron who sat across from her at the dinner table later that evening.

"I did meet someone actually," Cameron responded. "He's coming here to live with me in a few days."

"Who?"

"I meant him at the blood bank. He came to my station and I thought he was cute and then we just kind of hit it off," she said.

"That's sweet," Amaryllis said. "How old is he?"

"He's twenty-two. I've never seen him before though, even when I was living back home."

"Where are you going to live now that you're here again?"

"King Ulric is allowing me to move back into the room I stayed in when I was here. It's big enough for Kellen, my boyfriend, and I to stay in. He's going to be working with the nursing department. He had been studying in school for nursing and he had worked with the nurses in the hospital in our town."

"That's nice. I'm excited to meet him!"

Cameron stayed in one of the guest bedrooms on the first floor that night. She would be moving back into her room in the castle the next day. Ulric and Amaryllis headed up to their bedroom on the second floor. Amaryllis slid on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and Ulric stripped down to his boxers.

Amaryllis slid her hands around Ulric's abdomen and pressed her body against his back. "Do you want to feed on me?" She asked. He hadn't fed for quite a few days. He'd been stressed out lately dealing with setting up the new human systems and he'd been forgetting about eating.

He turned around so her face was pressed to his chest. She titled her neck for him, inviting him to her. He lowered his head and kissed the skin around the spot he was going to bite into. Then she felt his fangs against her skin right before he bit into her.

She threaded her hands into his hair, trying to push their bodies as close together as possible. She smiled against his chest as she felt his tongue snaking out to lick up the blood that had leaked from the puncture wounds. He retracted his fangs after a few minutes, licking across the puncture wounds and healing them. Then he licked his red lips, making sure not to waste a single speck of blood.

"Thank you," he said with a husky tone in his voice. She knew what that tone meant.

"Ulric, no," she said and placed a hand on his chest. "Cameron is right downstairs."

He stared at her completely unfazed by what she had just said. "It's our house," he answered.

"Yes, I know, but we have a guest for the evening and it doesn't hurt to be courteous."

"I think I've been courteous more than enough lately," he rebuked.

"Ulric," she chastised.

A sinister grin plastered his face and the next thing she knew she was on her back, naked, with Ulric above her.